If one is a sport star, it is bad to be a hockey player and worse to be the India captain in what is called the national game. It was the indomitable full-back Surjit Singh who got the boot, in May 1980 and now it is left half-back Vastidevan Bhaskaran who skippered the side that brought Olympic gold from Moscow.

In an inspired but shocking move last fortnight the Indian Hockey Federation (IHF) selectors omitted Bhaskaran from the 16 representing South Zone at the Inter-Zone Championship for the Wills Trophy in Delhi.

Players at the month-long Bangalore coaching camp with Bhaskaran were puzzled that the selectors could doubt his form or fitness. After leading the Olympic side to victory, Bhaskaran helped Indian Railways, for whom he works as a welfare inspector, reach the finals of this year's nationals in Jullundur and played creditably against the visiting Russians barely two months ago. The South Zone players made their feelings known at a farewell party on the day the team was announced and later in Delhi on arriving to play in the Inter-Zone Championship.

Bhaskaran too did not hide his disgust. Returning to his home in Madras after the South Zone team was announced, the Olympian said: "I have called it a day and under no circumstances will don the India colours again." Exactly a year ago, the earlier India captain Surjit Singh had remarked in a similar vein: "I will never play for the country again and I am happy to quit the dirty politics that is plaguing this sport." He had been "expelled" for not reporting in time for the pre-Olympic coaching camp in Bangalore. But this year he was back as captain of the North Zone side to the Delhi championship.

Slow Movement: There were straws in the wind that the IHF may have second thoughts and consider Bhaskaran for later camps to select the side for the year-end World Cup championship in Bombay. But in a rude jolt, Bhaskaran was also left out of the 44 probables for the Bombay championship, IHF president I.M. Mahajan announced in Delhi: "The Bhaskaran chapter is closed so far as the IHF is concerned." He also disclosed the IHF selection panel had endorsed the action of South Zone selectors in dropping Bhaskaran.

Their unanimous view: "Bhaskaran had slowed down, his recovery was very poor and he might not cope with further training." When exactly did the IHF discover that the 31-year-old Bhaskaran was slow? After all only 15 days before the start of the Bangalore camp in April that he had been called upon to assist the national squad against the Russians. Explained Mahajan: "The team against the Russians was selected hurriedly and it was noticed that Bhaskaran was not up to the mark." He denied charges that Bhaskaran had been dropped under pressure.

Viewed in the wider context of hockey management in the last 15 years, the Mahajan style of functioning is not new. After industrialist Naval Tata quit the onus of president of the IHF and Ashwini Kumar, ex-director-General of the bsf, made a flamboyant entry, all the politicking and intriguing began. From then on, it has been afflicted with casteism, communalism and nepotism. Those were the years when players from the south complained of a raw deal and Gurubux Singh refused to play under Prithipal Singh and had to be made joint captain.

After the Madras-based industrialist M.A.M. Ramaswamy became president in 1974, it was the turn of players from the north to complain. The Sikh players walked out of the coaching camp for the 1978 World Cup team protesting against some remarks about their community reportedly made by a selector. Once in the saddle, Ramaswamy did not hold any organisational elections until he quit by resigning last year.

Unlike Ramaswamy, the 55-year-old Mahajan, inspector general of the Central Industrial Security Force has been both a hockey player and a team manager several times, including the gold medal winning side to the Tokyo Olympics. The IHF bosses have never been known for imaginative decisions and the Mahajan regime, just six months old, is trying to improve hockey affairs as if it were some kind of military operation.

Match Practice: Coaching camps and attendant discipline is all that the IHF seems to know with the Delhi championship as a lone exception. But this is not new. It was once held in Madras in 1961 and served as a preliminary trial for choosing the side to the Jakarta Asian Games. Now over 40 players picked on their performance in the Delhi championship are to be trained for another six weeks before the list is pruned to 25, They will train for another four weeks before 18 of them, rest being stand-bys, leave for a month long tour of Europe in August.

It is intense match practice and not coaching that matters in improving techniques and strategy in play. Trappings and interceptions are often neither clean nor clear. Skills and craft, speed and staying power are all found wanting. It has to be kept in mind with Pakistan, Australia, New Zealand. Holland and West Germany staying away, the Olympic gold victory at Moscow seems elusive.

The real challenge is the year-end championship in Bombay. Chances of reaching the semi-finals look remote as India plays several tough contenders in the pool matches. Fortunately, the matches are being played on natural turf. However, this is not the turf of the future. After the Moscow Olympics, the Turf Commission of the Federation Internationale d'Hockie (FIH) said the astro turf (the artificial turf manufactured by Monsanto Company) is the only artificial surface approved by the FIH for top level competitions. Pakistan has two such surfaces and enough players to make three sides of international class.

India is to get the astro turf only next year, months before the Asian Games. And to play bustling hockey on that surface, if teams are to win, the IHF has to scout for talent and develop their skills. May be the junior nationals at Kolhapur (May 23-June 7) can help build the hockey nursery if India is serious about trying to retain the gold at the next Olympics.

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